My trip to Mt.Fuji

It was a hot and very humid summer! The summer of 1998, my first year in Japan.

And a very short summer vacation.

I managed to go to Mt.Fuji ("only" 3775.65m)- the most famous Japanese mountain! Wow that was taugh! In a few words- kind of a bad experience...

Together with my new (then) girlfriend from Romania, we started from Tokyo about 7pm taking a highway bus from Shinjuku- the most famous place in Tokyo. In about 2 hours we reached the so called "GO-GO-ME" meaning "The 5th station", 2305m. Untill there, onecan take the Subaru toll-road, in case s/he is driving. Don't remember the price now, but about 2000JPY. So about 10pm (yes it was planned as a night climb) we started from 5th station up. The weather was very cloudy, but the temperature was perfect 20°C, compared to Tokyo's 30°C. We soon reached 6th, then 7th stations...till 8th station.

There, about 3100m, we stuck in a big.... queue! Yes, a huge to-the-top queue of Japanese mainly, waiting to climb the peak before sunrise. Awful but that is Japan the country of (MANY) people! So we had to make a step then wait 5-10 seconds, then again... I was carrying about 20 kg (tent, water, food, sleeping bag...), so you can imagine how well I felt with that turtle pace. And the problem is that there is only one path, about one meter wide, secured with ropes, outside which the terran is so awkward, so many pebbles, that you cannot possibly make a step without falling 2-3 back. On top of all that, I started feeling the altitude straight in my head. I have just climbed more than 3000m (from Tokyo) in less than 4 hours; normal symptoms, right? I think so.

In about five and a half hours we made it to the edge of the crater, the sky still dark, cloudy, rainy and kind of strong wind. The temperature was about 5°C. God, I was so damn tired! Then what?

As every "GAI-JIN" (foreigner) we do what is forbidden and that was: put a tent inside the crater. Well a had a very hard time putting it up because of the wind and rain, but somehow I managed, soaked to the skin (due to my laziness I put only the Gore-Tex jacket, not the pants). Once I put the tent, we just hurled inside in order to prevent it from being blown away by the rising wind.

I was able to have a short 1 hour sleep and when I woke up I felt like the biggest sh__ on the world - my head was hurting to death, my feet were frozen (despite the -14° sleeping bag??) and my throat was soured! I did my best and in 10 minutes I found myself looking at the crater while trying to keep myself from being blown away. The weather was still awful, but at least it was not raining anymore; the sun had probably risen, 'cause it was light, but I didn't give a sh__ abut that at the time. The obvious solution was DOWN, DOWN, DOOOWN...

We managed to pack in less than an hour (wow!) after having a breakfast whose taste I will never remember (maybe no taste?), and so we went... UP! Yeah, up to the real peak which was about 50m higher, on the other side of the crater. We reached that soon and I took some pictures (the only from Fuji) in the fog (<-that's why). And then down, down as fast as possible.

In fact it was really fast as we used a but strange way of descending- "skiing" over the tiny black pebbles on the West (?? I lost my compass somewhere before that :-( side of the volcano. It was a very good decision to put on our spats before that. So in about 2 hours we descended to about 2300m and I was OK, but you know (may be) that the worst thing when going down at this latitudes is the heat and humidity which makes your breathing hard as you go down.

I said "Bye" to Fuji and we took a taxi to the nearest station. Well, it was unusual to use taxi, but other people said that it would be cheaper if four people used it. So we went to Gotenba station and with that our Mt. Fuji adventure ended!

Now I moved to Sapporo city, as I chose my university for the undergraduate degree to be University of Hokkaido and I'm a way off Mt. Fuji, but in case I find enough money next winter, I'd like to give it a try. During winter, for several days, some bad weather and cold will make a good training for K2- my wildest dream now!